45% More Subscribers This Week! Here's What I Did

LOOK AT THIS BEASTLY SCANDAL. 👀

Just one week after launching my new site, I'm seeing these kinds of (banana milkshake! 🍌🥤) results:

Let's break that down one mo' time:

• 45% more new subscribers this week than last week
• New subscribers are opening at 65%—6pp higher than my established audience

Those are excellent numbers.

Here's what's making the difference:

1. A fast, modern publishing site that doesn't look like Uncle Buck designed it from the back of sedan in his underwear in '98. (I used Ghost and I am never, ever going back.)
2. Having Claude Code re-build my entire backlog of essays since 2009, making it obvious that I'm not some fly-by-night rando life coach who just started spewing sugary advice to "design your life on your own terms!" (I hate that phrase. Have hated it since 2009.) This was huge. Claude Code pulled alllllllll my old Wordpress posts, all my old newsletter broadcasts, my current Kit newsletter broadcasts, and my Substack posts, and consolidated it allllllll together in one place, and then formatted them all, and then updated all of my links, and then categorized + tagged every single post, and then added in my new affiliate links (and replaced any old ones), and then added disclaimers to posts with affiliate links. I MEAN. This used to take my assistant and I weeks to do. Months, even. Even just thinking about having to manually re-format thousands of posts will prevent you from doing it ever at all.
3. The super sticky sidebar opt-in. (See here.) I'm currently testing which forms are converting the highest, and sticky sidebar is winning 🏆 so far. It's persistent, so it's there all the time. Sort of like the dishes in my sink.
4. The new lead magnet: Notes on Professional Independence. I'll send you a copy when it's released on the 18th. But, thank you, Claude Design, for the sweet matching cover!
5. Getting hyper clear about the fact that I don't want to attract mentally flabby, gassy, full-of-air tire kickers. I want people who are interested in building cool businesses and projects on the internet. Who have ambition and drive. Who are curious and engaged. And who are self-directed and disciplined. Which means that you need to say the kinds of things that attract those kinds of people. No more fluffy, pink-cloud "design life on your own terms" (even if I wouldn't have said it, anyway, lol).
6. And, um, of COURSE this line is doing some work: "This is not a newsletter about fish." ⬇️ (See below.) It's a signal. It's an identity marker. It says: "Subscribe if you are my people." And, that is why we learn how to write with personality. Because now, personality will convert more than ever. Because anyone can make a site like I did. But not everyone will still sound like they care.